Lynn Shapiro Snyder Quoted in Article, “State of the Industry 2012”

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Managed Healthcare ExecutiveOctober 17, 2011

Lynn Shapiro Snyder, a Senior Member of the Firm in the Health Care and Life Sciences and Litigation practices, in the firm's Washington, DC, office, was quoted in an article titled "State of the Industry 2012."

Following is an excerpt:

The main issue surrounding the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is whether the individual mandate provision is a legally permissible exercise of Congress's powers under the Constitution.

A secondary question is whether the entire law would be invalidated if the individual mandate provision is deemed to be unconstitutional, according to Lynn Shapiro Snyder. It's possible that only the mandate provision would be overturned (along with it, guaranteed issue and pre-existing condition exclusions). Circuit courts have already taken opposite positions, and it is clear the Supreme Court ultimately will decide.

"While justices base their opinions on different interpretations of relevant court precedents, I have learned over the years that court cases in the healthcare field cannot be predicted like other types of litigation, either from the available precedent or from the justices' political persuasion," Snyder says. "There is something very personal about how justices decide healthcare cases."

Snyder says that more health reform implementation, such as the definition of the essential health benefits package, will further shape the attractiveness of the new health insurance products.